THE LATEST IN DEVELOPMENT NEWS

We all know Aldi is coming, but when? And where? And why do we not know more information? Well, that's because CDINDULUTH is here to tell you more.

We originally reported on Aldi's potential plans to come to the Twin Ports in January of last year. We were quite excited to be able to break the news in December that Aldi was indeed planning at least two Twin Ports locations to open within the next year. However, it's March now and things seem to have been "hush hush" for quite sometime now. So then what exactly is going on with Aldi and the Twin Ports?

The German based low cost food market has been scouting the Duluth area as a new market for a few years now. On January 16th the company held interviews for positions for the new store locations and were looking for quite a few management positions and training for those Twin Ports locations was said to have begun last month. That still doesn't solve the store locations problem. So come on CDINDULUTH, for crying out loud TELL US WHERE THEY ARE GOING!

We been in contact with Spencer Shimmel, director of Real Estate for the Fairbault division of Aldi, about the new locations. "Nothing is guaranteed in these markets" as of yet he told us. It's not that the company is still contemplating if they should enter the market, but as Andrew said Aldi is still "investigating" where in the Twin Ports is the best fit for them.

Now things are quite matching up if you've been following some of the news on Aldi regarding the Twin Ports. Fox 21 noted back in December that Aldi had selected a site in front of Menards on Tower Avenue to construct a new 18,000 square foot food market (we call them grocery stores). Yet those plans still have not been confirmed by Aldi corporate officials (trust us we;ve tried to get it out of them) and it seems the company is keeping quite secret on the topic.

Does it mean that the news isn't true? Well, not quite. To be honest it's a perfectly logical site for Aldi in Superior. It's on a busy road, there's a plot ready for development, it's next to a big box retailer who draws many customer types, plus it's on the edge of town meaning its accessible to both city dwellers and those who live outside the city. So what are we saying? It's probably correct that Aldi will in fact build a store location on Tower Avenue. But is it confirmed? No.

Well that's great for Superior, but what about Duluth? Things still remain under wraps regarding the Duluth location. We have yet to really hear any details on where Aldi may potentially locate in Duluth. Logical places include quite a number and it's evident that the company most likely will open multiple locations within the city.

Our personal site contenders for an Aldi location include one that is near the Miller Hill Mall possibly near Sam's Club by the new Mills Fleet Farm development where the are plentiful sites ready for development and high traffic counts. Another site that might suit Aldi well is the former Save-A-Lot space in West Duluth. Other sources have said Aldi is looking at locating near UMD in the Woodland Area. The only place we can think of is the Bluestone development and personally we hope to see a Trader Joe's there one day (remember it's part of Aldi's family).

When all is said and done you can rest assured on two things. The first is the Aldi is still coming to the area. The second is that CDINDULUTH will be right here to let you know all the latest in Aldi development news... and... well Twin Ports development news too!